Vasileios Efthymiou, "Stochastic simulation of mining systems with Arena software", Diploma Work, School of Mineral Resources Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece, 2023
https://doi.org/10.26233/heallink.tuc.96237
The purpose of this thesis is to simulate surface mining systems using Rockwell Automation's ARENA software for the optimal selection of the required equipment (loaders and haulage trucks). The developed simulation model was applied in the surface mine of Agios Ioannis (be-longing to Larco SA) located in the area of Boeotia.Different scenarios were presented regarding a typical surface mine, where we try to determine the most efficient layout of the mining equipment, both for the initial excavation stage of the mine, and for its future expansion. The differences in the model variables between these scenari-os concern the loading cycles of the loader, the routes of the haulage trucks in non-dispatching transport systems and dispatched systems. Also, the changes concerning the duration of the re-lated mining procedures and its variability (fixed or following a normal distribution) were con-sidered.Afterwards, the simulation model was applied for the Northern Sector of the Agios Ioannis mine. The existing measurements of loading and haulage cycles were used to estimate their mean value and the variance. Bootstrapping was used to increase the accuracy of these estimations in the cases were small number of measurements were available. As emerged from the simulation, the scenarios with fixed-time and dispatched transportation ap-peared to give the best possible equipment exploitation, both in terms of loader utilization and waiting times. In the cases of variable times, longer delays were observed in the excavation-transportation system, while the increase in distances requires a greater number of haulage trucks to achieve the maximum efficiency of the loading system.